Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/95

 RELIGION. 75 celestial virgin " or " the genius of Carthage." Melkart, in whom the Greeks saw a form of their Heracles, also had a temple, close to the harbour, in all the Phoenician colonies." Besides these great gods there were, at Carthage, others of less importance, of whom we know little more than the names : Sakon, Aris, Tsaphon, males, Illat and Astorct, females, and others who are alluded to in the texts by such phrases as " the great mother," " the mistress of the sanctuary." During the two centuries which preceded the fall of Carthage, her religion became stongly tinged with Hellenic elements, 3 but down to the very end certain rites held their own, which by their cruelty bear witness to the hardness of the Phoenician character. With the Carthaginians, as with all other races of antiquity, the sacrifice was the chief act of worship ; it was the rite which brought man nearest to his god and gave him the strongest claim upon the protection of heaven. We can easily understand how savage nations thought they could not do honour to their ferocious deities better than by sacrificing members of their own race ; but as manners softened under the influence of civilization, the idea of a substitute won gradual but universal acceptance. The substitu- tion was effected in many different ways. " Sometimes a domestic animal, a ram, an ox, a bird, or a stag, was immolated in place of the being to be spared ; sometimes the substitute was a stone, which was erected in honour of the god and became a kind of metaphorical sacrifice." 4 Neither in Egypt nor in Chaldaea have we yet found any trace of human sacrifices, while the Greeks abandoned the custom at a very early date. But among the Phoenicians, and especially the Phoenicians of Africa, these holocausts lasted as long as the gods in whose honour they had first been instituted. They were celebrated at Carthage at a time when human sacrifices roused no 1 Upon the Virgo Celestis of classic writers, of coins and inscriptions, see ECKHEL, Doct. num. ret., vol. vii. p. 183. In the text of the treaty between Philip and Hannibal, which has been handed down to us by POLYBIUS (vii. ix. 2), it must be Tanit who is disguised under the name Ka/mxr/Soi/iW Sat/iwv, in a triad where that deity is followed by Heracles (Melkart) and lolaos (Esmoun). ~ BERGER, La Phenicie, p. 22. FR. LEXORMANT, Manuel d'Histoire ancienne, vol. iii. p. 227. 3 DIODORUS, xiv. xxvii. 5. 4 PH. BERGER, La Phenicie, p. 26.